With the world rushing headlong into risking runaway, catastrophic climate change, the People’s Climate March is going to be the biggest global climate mobilisation in history -- and you’re right in the center of it. We’ll all be doing this together, whether it’s a march, a flashmob, stunt or any other creative way to bring people together on September 21st and deliver a unique message to our governments: “100% Clean! Save the world from climate catastrophe by committing to keep global warming below 2 degrees celsius by transitioning our economies to 100% clean energy, like solar and wind power.”

This Guide can help you plan your day of action in your town or city. It includes:

• 1. The Context: Climate catastrophe threatens everything we love
• 2. The Problem: world leaders don’t think we care
• 3. Our Answer: the largest climate mobilisation ever
• 4. How to host your “We 100% Clean” action
• 5. After the march - making history together

Don’t be afraid to ask for help! If you want to get in touch with someone from the Avaaz team, go to the live chat and ask a question!

The Context: Climate Catastrophe Threatens Everything We Love

Climate change doesn’t just make the world a bit warmer or bring a few more storms. Scientists are screaming from the rooftops that our climate is the result of a very, very delicate balance. Global warming is upsetting that balance, and if we don’t act, it will likely hit ‘tipping points’ and ‘feedback loops’ where accelerated climate change moves beyond our control and devastates human life as we know it.

For example, one of these feedback loops is arctic ice. Right now, it acts like a giant mirror, reflecting the sun’s heat back into space. But as global warming melts the ice, there’s less ‘mirror’ which means more warming, which means less ice. The process hits a ‘tipping point’ when the feedback loop accelerates beyond control, eventually melting all the ice! This process has begun, and we may soon see the first summer in recorded history with no arctic sea ice. But there are other, even more dangerous feedback loops waiting in our climate system.

That’s why scientists have said that world leaders *must* keep global warming below 2 degrees celsius. If we cross that line, we’re flirting with disaster. But to keep from crossing it, we need to radically reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and the only way to do that is to shift to 100% clean, green energy to power our economies. Click here for more on tipping points and here for more on the goal of 100% clean.

The Problem: World Leaders Think We Don’t Care

On September 23, nearly every President and Prime Minister of the world is coming to New York for a landmark climate summit called by the head of the UN. The problem is, when they meet with climate advocates and experts, they say they don’t feel pressure to act. Opinion polls show people care about climate change, but politicians ask ‘where are the protests?’. This mobilisation is our answer.

For decades, international efforts to fight climate change have run into roadblocks. This UN summit is different. It is designed to unlock progress by bringing together world leaders to focus on what it will take to secure a new global climate treaty in December 2015, when the existing global climate agreement comes to an end.

The responsibility is ours. No movement for massive social change has ever won without being present in massive numbers at key moments in history. And the People’s Climate March is our moment to take to the streets and reclaim the world that we know is possible -- a world with good jobs, clean air, and healthy communities for everyone. A world with an economy that works for people and the planet. A world safe from the devastation of runaway climate change.

Our Answer: The Largest Climate March Ever

So here’s how we’re going to shake things up: taking to public spaces in tens of thousands of places around the world to demand climate action -- a mass coordinated day of global action to show our leaders that we’re willing to act to save everything we love.

In certain cities, we need to turn out large marches. London, Rio, Paris, Delhi, Melbourne and Berlin are places whose leaders can make or break the summit and a global deal -- groups are already working together to have tens of thousands of people turning up to amplify our call for climate action in the right sets of ears. The biggest march by far will be in New York outside the UN summit, where Avaaz is working with 600 organisations from environment, labor, faith and justice backgrounds to make it massive!

But it’s going to take every one of us, taking to public spaces within our communities to give world leaders the push they need to save the planet. So Avaaz has come up with a simple event that can be run anywhere with just a little bit of planning. And that’s where you come in.

You’ll be hosting a “We 100% Clean” action. Here’s how:

• 1. Have a plan for Sept 21 and share it via Facebook, email and phone calls with your networks, other Avaaz volunteers, family, friends.
• 2. Be creative, nimble and diligent to make sure all the steps and requirements to build the action on Sept 21 are nailed.
• 3. Use the green heart as main image of your action, but think what other resources or actions could help communicate our message and be media worthy. The green heart can be used with anything we love that’s worth saving from climate change. So your posters might have our kids or planet or chocolate! :)
• 4. Gather as many people as possible to attend your event
• 5. Create video and take pictures from your event to be delivered to world leaders in New York
• 6. Make it massive in the media to pile on the pressure

How To Host Your “We 100% Clean” Action

The BIG idea:

WHAT: The core of the “We 100% Clean” action is to deliver a massive call to action to our leaders at two different levels:

1) Reach our National Leaders - The first level targeted is our national leaders assembled at the UN. We actually will have 15 minutes with all the heads of state sitting at the summit together and required to listen to us! There’s never been a better opportunity for a people’s voice to speak to power.

The vision is for each event to deliver our call for 100% clean by including a big sign saying “Town 100% clean” - e.g. “Paris 100% clean”. When you’ve arranged your event or stunt to include this sign, then take a picture of everyone at the delivery, share it online and upload to the Avaaz site to send to the summit in New York where they’ll be displayed on large screens.

2) Reach our Local Leaders - The second target is our local leaders (e.g. Mayors), who also can make powerful decisions to shift to cleaner sources of energy. Avaaz will launch a petition for 100% Clean starting a couple of weeks before the summit. It will be a single, global petition, but we’ll provide a page where you can check the number of signers in your community. Share this petition as much as you can online within your community to maximise the number of local signatures. If you get enough (say a few hundred for a small town, or a few thousand for a large city) then use your event to deliver this petition to your local leader.

While these are our suggestions, remember this is your event! You can change anything you want to about it - including coming up with different messages or actions that are more appropriate for your community. For inspiration, here’s a video of the last time Avaaz did something like this - with our “global wake up call” on climate in 2009. Look at the diversity! www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWrstBidAXg

WHEN: Most of the marches and events are taking place on Sunday September 21st. But your event could be a day or two earlier if there’s a good reason to do that. For example, if you can secure a personal delivery to your local house of government on Friday, that’s great.

HOW: Here’s how to get moving:

A.) Choose a great location to get started. Great places to hold your event could include the steps of your town hall or Parliament, outside the Ministry of the Environment, in a town square or university or at the main train station. Once you decide, make sure everyone knows where and when to rally by registering your event on the Avaaz site at: secure.avaaz.org/en/climate_events

Generally events in public places require permits (and in democratic countries, your local government or police should be helpful in giving you one), but you could also opt for a ‘flashmob’ approach. While you must respect the law, the flashmob model does not usually involve getting permission. The event is ideally invisible at first, then emerges out of nowhere with any banners and signs suddenly unfurled, and then disappears just as suddenly. But if you are approached by the police and asked about the event -- politely explain what the gathering is and if they ask you to disperse, ask if you can take a quick photo first -- that's the most important thing to get done.

If you live in a country where authorities are very strict about gatherings in public you may want to hold your event on private property as a last resort, or find a way to simulate or mock a delivery to your politicians. For example, you could download a life-size picture of your local or national leader’s face, paste it on cardboard and make a mask. Then take a picture of your event including her or him, or delivering the petition to them. Share that picture with local media and on social media.

B.) Invite everyone! Friends, neighbours, family, colleagues are all great places to start, but keep thinking about who you know. Bring your sports team, your child’s school class and everyone from your favourite cafe. Use the event host page to invite people online and download fliers to reach out in person.

In the lead up to September 21, Avaaz will also send an invitation email to other Avaaz members who live close by to the event. From past experience response rates will vary widely from area to area so it’s hard to predict how many people will join this way. Make sure you count on your own outreach and networks to drive turnout, and don’t expect many Avaazers to turn up. Keep an eye on your personal host event page (which can be found in the event confirmation email sent to you) to see who’s coming, and send reminders using the messaging system to contact everyone who has RSVPed to your event! One good tip to supercharge your event is asking everyone who signs up to bring three friends.

C.) Nail down the details . Here’s some tips on things to think through:

• 1. Make sure you go to the venue beforehand to check it out so there are no surprises on the day.
• 2. Who would be the best decision-maker in your area to receive this? Your local mayor is one possible target, but you could also deliver it to your member of parliament, senator or even prime minister or president. Choose someone you think your event could get the attention of. Get all the contact info you can ahead of time and you could even invite them to receive it in person.
• 3. How will you make your signs? Print them out on A4? Ask friends and family to paint them onto canvas? Ask a printing shop to help out? It’s up to you - take the vision as inspiration and run with it!
• 4. Plan to have a camera and video camera and someone to film and take photos organised to record the action. You are making history, so the more professional these people, the better!
• 5. Do you need help? On the day or in advance? You’ll be notified by email if anyone volunteers online but reach out to friends too. Plan speakers, media spokespeople and other roles in advance.
• 6. Invite the media to cover your event by contacting journalists and editors of the important media in your area
• 7. Think big. What artists, celebrities, soccer players, or other top figures in your community would like to join the event or support it? Send them a Tweet or an e-mail to invite them to join and spread the message - you’ll be surprised what might come of it!
• 8. There’s going to be thousands of events around the world and Avaaz is not able to support events financially or provide public liability insurance. A good tip is get in touch with groups already active in your area to see if they can help out or ask local governments for assistance.

D.) Keep people updated. Use your event page on Facebook and the Avaaz site to keep people informed -- put in directions to the location on public transport, requests for people to bring things, and inspirational messages to get people excited. This is especially important if any of the key details change (such as the location, date or time). Then notify others of these updates via e-mail.

E.) Plan your props! It’s time to get creative and show some love. Banners, tee-shirts, face paints, balloons -- green hearts work on everything! Make badges to hand out to people walking by who can join in or sell green heart cupcakes to pay for your other props. Find a way to allow people to join the global petition on that same day during your action: use paper and pencil, an ipad, your fingerprints, etc. be creative!

While you are planning what visuals to use, it is a great time to think about what photos you will take. If everyone is wearing green, why not stand in the shape of a heart. If you have people with green hearts painted on their faces, they could hold up their hands in the shape of a heart on their their chests. You might want to plan several different photos to make sure you get one you love.

F.) Use the media to make a splash -- Getting our actions into the media will help show world leaders that the majority of the public cares deeply about the climate crisis. Here’s a simple step-by-step guide on how to get covered: Media Guide

And here's a suggested timeline for contacting the media:

• 1. Draft a short media advisory and compile a contact list of 5-10 local journalists you want to reach out to by Friday September 12
• 2. Send out your media advisory on Thursday September 18
• 3. Call the journalists on Friday September 19
• 4. Bring copies of your media advisory to the event on the day

Want to guarantee coverage? Try writing an Op-ed (opinion piece) to your local paper or send a letter to the editor.

Remember, the media might also be visiting your event page, so as plans for your event develop, log back into your event host control page to make sure everything is constantly updated.

After The March - Making History Together

A.) Immediately send in your photos and your stories -- We need pictures, videos, and stories of events right away as we will be making a video to present to leaders at the UN Summit, which is 2 days after the 21st. We’re also working to secure screen space in Times Square to project content from around the world straight into the heart of Manhattan.

Email your photos and videos to photos@avaaz.org -- or for big files, upload them to www.filedropper.com and email the link to photos@avaaz.org.

B.) Issue a Press Release -- Once you have completed the action, send out a press release to relevant media outlets. Include photos and videos (or links to them) in the press release so the media outlets can add the events to their next editions. You may also want to send a letter to your elected representatives with some images of your action, showing them that voters in their area really 100% Clean. The media guide has a sample press release here.

C.) Thanking everyone and staying in touch -- you can use the events tool to send a thank you email to those who attended.

There will be lots of other opportunities to get together in your local area between now and the Paris summit in 2015 (there’s a timeline below) - but it’s also absolutely fine if your group takes a break. September 21 will create lasting connections in our communities that could kick start local groups, create new circles of friends, or simply a friendly face we run into at the store. Whatever comes out of it is a great result, and Avaaz has no expectation, or intention, that anyone commit to any longer commitment.

Finally - congratulate yourself on a job well done!

Here is the timeline between the People’s Climate March and the Paris Summit:

Date	Event	Significance
21st September 2014	People’s Climate March	The largest climate mobilisation in history, to show leaders that people really care about climate change and to push them to lead.
23rd September 2014	UN Climate Leadership Summit	Leaders have been personally invited by the UN Secretary General to come prepared with climate action pledges of how their country intends to address the climate crisis. Strong pledges here will shape the road ahead.
1st - 12th December 2014	Lima UN Climate Summit	Many of the basic details on how the global deal will happen get decided here.
Jan -- March 2015	Countries submit their carbon cutting plans (‘offers’)	In the first quarter of 2015, countries will submit their ‘offers’ for Paris. Avaaz will campaign throughout this time to make sure they’re aligned with what we need to save the planet.
June 5th 2015	G7 Summit	A meeting of the world’s largest economies that could set the stage for Paris if they indicate they support ambitious action.
September 2015	New York UN Summit	National leaders will meet in New York again for the annual UN General Assembly. While there are no current plans for them to discuss climate, we’ll want them to make it a priority.
December 2015	Paris UN Summit	This is the deadline governments have set for a global deal to stop a climate crisis. If we’ve done our jobs, we’ll get a win here!

Peoples Climate Marches are being coordinated worldwide as an unprecedented global alliance of civil society organisations, trade unions, faith groups and citizens, all calling for increased climate action from world leaders. Avaaz members around the world are organizing citizen events in solidarity with the amazing Global Marches. Citizen events are our opportunity to take responsibility for the future of our planet! This is YOUR event, as a leader and a citizen, and Avaaz as an organization does not take responsibility for what happens during it.

Thanks for your time, energy and enthusiasm to host an event. We can only stop climate change if we all push together and show world leaders that we care enough to take to the streets to demand action.